We Need a Little Advent

It seems like the Christmas season starts a little earlier each year with many stores decorating in late October and running “early-bird” specials throughout November. The ubiquitous sounds of the season fill up our radios, our shopping centers, and our waiting rooms. Thanksgiving Day should be about spending time with friends, family, and football, but it is not even safe from the constant siren song to buy more, and many stores will be open long before the Turkey Day dishes are cleared. It might be the most wonderful time.

I am not ready for Christmas.

I do not think I am a Grinch, and I hope my heart isn’t two sizes too small. I love presents, egg nog, and carols, but I do not want them right now. The Scriptures remind us, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, NRSV.) Before we get to Christmas, we need a little Advent (right this very minute.)

Advent does not have the popular cultural cache of stockings, tinsel, and St. Nick, but it is very important to our life of faith. It is the beginning of our liturgical calendar and a time of hopeful and patient expectation as we prepare for Jesus’ arrival at Christmas and his glorious and triumphant return in the future. At its core, Advent is a time of preparation for something bigger than just another holiday. Presbyterian pastor and author Frederick Buechner writes, “For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning - not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.”

At this time of year, the world is getting darker, colder, and busier. We are called to do something different. We will gather at each December service to light candles and wait; to sing hymns and wait; to pray together and wait; to hear the Word of God and wait. Our culture says go, but our Lord calls us again and again to be still. We will celebrate the 12 days of the Christmas Season together when it begins on December 25. I know it will be worth the wait!

O Come, O come, Emmanuel.

In Hope and Confidence,
Pastor Dave